Jewel bearings before synthetics

Before jewels, early watches suffered metal-on-metal friction: steel pivots ran in soft brass plates, enlarging holes into ovals and degrading accuracy. Jewel bearings were invented in 1704 by Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and the Debaufre brothers, using natural gemstones (ruby, sapphire, garnet, even diamond). Hard, polished stone on steel greatly reduced friction and wear, improving efficiency and timekeeping, but each tiny stone was labor-intensive and costly to grind and drill, so multiple jewels appeared mainly in premium watches.

1902: Verneuil’s synthetic rubies

French chemist Auguste Verneuil developed the flame-fusion process in 1902: alumina powder melts in an oxyhydrogen flame and crystallizes into a ruby (add chromium for red; iron/titanium for sapphire). The resulting boule has the same physical and chemical characteristics as corundum, the mineral of natural ruby and sapphire: same hardness (9 on the Mohs scale), same wear resistance, but available in bulk at a fraction of the cost.

For watchmaking, this was a turning point: the process made jewelled bearings much cheaper, so they were no longer constrained by mined gem supply or price. Makers could fully jewel movements without prohibitive cost, improving accuracy, efficiency, and service life for mainstream watches, not just the elite.

Why synthetic jewels improved watches

• Low friction & better amplitude: Jewel bearings are used where low friction, long life, and dimensional accuracy matter. Polished ruby on steel has very low friction, so less energy is lost in the train; the balance runs more consistently, improving rate stability.
• Extreme wear resistance: Corundum resists abrasion; jeweled pivots don’t “oval out” like brass bushings and maintain geometry for decades.
• Lubrication control: Jewels are drilled with tiny oil cups; capillary action keeps oil at the pivot where it’s needed, reducing service-related wear.
• Uniformity & scalability: Synthetic boules yield consistent stones with fewer inclusions, ideal for precision bearings and mass production.

So why didn’t adoption happen overnight?

• Machining & assembly had to catch up: Early jewel cutting and drilling was slow and wasteful, and press-fitting jewels into plates (instead of gem-setting with screws/chatons) took years to become standard practice.
• Cost pressures at the low end: Even cheap jewels add cost in volume. Many inexpensive watches (e.g., mid-century pin-lever or hardened-bushing designs) limited jewel counts to hit price points.
• Supply scaling & wartime disruption: Global capacity took time to build. During WWII, jewel bearings were strategic: they were one of the products restricted by the United States government as critical to the war effort.
• Industry tradition & marketing: Jewel count equaled perceived quality, and manufacturers listed the number of jewels prominently on the watch face or back as an advertising point. As synthetics made jewels cheap, some brands “upjeweled” for advertising before norms settled. Prestige concerns about “synthetic” also faded gradually as performance proved identical.

Bottom line

Verneuil’s 1902 breakthrough democratized jewel bearings. As machining and press-fitting matured and supply scaled, the industry moved from a handful of natural jewels in premium pieces to fully jeweled movements as the norm. The result was a 20th-century leap in accuracy, durability, and service life for mass-market mechanical watches, powered by tiny, uniform rubies you barely see, but that keep everything running smoothly decade after decade. The same idea, a lab-made gem with essentially the same properties as the natural one, now extends to diamonds; see our lab-grown diamond engagement rings.